The United States of InsoucianceSince
his return from a self-imposed hiatus, Paul Craig Roberts has been a
man on fire, penning a series of riveting, ravaging articles that speak
hard truth to the imperial state -- and to a society seemingly content
to countenance, if not cheer, that state's worst malefactions. Roberts
has done it again with his latest piece: "Insouciant Americans." Get thee hence, and read.

Mission AccomplishedIt's
hard to understand why all our serious commentators are writing that
Barack Obama's presidency is in trouble, and offering sage advice, from
right, left, and center, on what he needs to do to "get back on track."
The truth, of course, is that Barack Obama's presidency is a smashing
success -- indeed, a record-breaking success -- and that he is accomplishing exactly what he was put into office to do, as the New York Times reports today: Corporate Profits Were the Highest on Record Last Quarter.

Chronicles of CorruptionMy old Moscow Times comrade Matt Taibbi adds another chapter
to his on-going -- and jaw-dropping -- series of stories on the
deliberate evisceration of ordinary Americans by their monied and
minatory betters. Taibbi has few equals when it comes to explaining the
true depth and extent of American corruption -- and almost no equal when
it comes to actually reporting on it from the front lines. He is
creating a record of the reality of our times that future historians
(yes, yes, if there are any) will find invaluable.

The Dissident PathChris
Hedges is another incendiary voice, burning through the threadbare
curtain of liberal piety and exceptionalist myth to expose the corroded
heart of a nation sliding into barbarity. His latest piece at Truthdig is an excellent example, so we'll finish here with a few choice quotes:

There
is no hope left for achieving significant reform or restoring our
democracy through established mechanisms of power. The electoral process
has been hijacked by corporations. The judiciary has been corrupted and
bought. The press shuts out the most important voices in the country
and feeds us the banal and the absurd. Universities prostitute
themselves for corporate dollars. Labor unions are marginal and
ineffectual forces. The economy is in the hands of corporate swindlers
and speculators. And the public, enchanted by electronic hallucinations,
remains passive and supine. We have no tools left within the power
structure in our fight to halt unchecked corporate pillage.

The
liberal class, which Barack Obama represents, was never endowed with
much vision or courage, but it did occasionally respond when pressured
by popular democratic movements. This was how we got the New Deal, civil
rights legislation and the array of consumer legislation pushed through
by Ralph Nader and his allies in the Democratic Party. The complete
surrendering of power, however, to corporate interests means that those
of us who seek nonviolent yet profound change have no one within the
power elite we can trust for support. The corporate coup has ossified
the structures of power. It has obliterated all checks on corporate
malfeasance. It has left us stripped of the tools of mass organization
that once nudged the system forward toward justice. ....

Our
worst premonitions are becoming reality. Our intuition has proved
correct. We are reaching the breaking point. An explosion, unless we
halt the increased pressure, seems inevitable. And what is left for
those of us who cannot embrace the contaminants of violence? If the
system shuts us out how can we influence it through nonviolent
mechanisms of popular protest? How can we restore a civil society? How
can we battle back against those who will mobilize hatred to cement into
place an American fascism?

I do not
know if we can win this battle. I suspect we cannot. But I do know that
if we stop resisting, if we stop rebelling, something fundamental will
die within us. As the corporate vise tightens, as the vast corporate
system begins to break down with fossil fuel decline, extreme climate
change and the expansion of global poverty, even mundane and ordinary
acts to assert our common humanity and justice will be condemned as
subversive.

It is time to think of
resistance in a new way, something that is no longer carried out to
reform a system but as an end in itself. African-Americans understood
this during the long night of slavery. German opposition leaders
understood it under the Nazis. Dissidents in the former Soviet Union
knew this during the nightmare of communism. Resistance in these closed
systems was local and often solitary. It was done with the understanding
that evil must always be defied. The tiny acts of rebellion—day after
day, month after month, year after year and decade after decade—exposed
to everyone who witnessed them the heartlessness, cruelty and inhumanity
of the oppressor. They were acts of truth and beauty. We must take to
the street. We must jam as many wrenches into the corporate system as we
can. We must not make it easy for them. But we also must no longer live
in self-delusion. This is a battle that will outlive us. And if we
fight, even with this tragic vision, we will lead lives worth living and
keep alive another way of being.